The purpose of this symposium is to present current work in the broad field of neural regeneration, while highlighting areas in which some notable recent progress has been made or in which some particularly interesting issues have been raised. The symposium is planned for December 8-12, 1999 at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, California. It is the eighth in a series of alternate year conferences, all held at the same site and during the same part of the year. The previous seven symposia were in December of 1985, 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1995 and 1997. The Department of Veterans Affairs supports the organizing office (Office of Regeneration Research Programs), the symposium planning committee meetings, and provides additional support for each symposium. Applications have been submitted to the Paralyzed Veterans of America, the American Paralysis Association and the Eastern Paralyzed Veterans Association, all of whom co-sponsored the 1997 symposium with the NIH. The proposed program, which was the product of a meeting of the VA Office of Regeneration Research Programs Advisory Board on August 7, 1998, includes a keynote speaker, two featured speakers, and six major topic sessions, each with a chairman who will present an introductory overview, plus a total of 30 invited session speakers. In addition, there will be free communications in the form of posters contributed by symposium registrants. The meeting is open to anyone who wishes to register. Student attendance is encouraged and supported. The number of registrants is estimated at 250. The content of the symposium will be widely disseminated in the form of a summary in the Regeneration Research Newsletter (international circulation of 4,500), by publication of the abstracts in a journal, by placement of the abstracts on the world wide web, and by publishing the proceedings in book form. The long range plan is to hold the neural regeneration symposia regularly on alternate years at the same time of year and in the same location. The program is varied biennially in order to cover the field of neural regeneration in successive symposia. The proposed meeting at Asilomar will have a single session format and has been organized to allow time for relaxed interchange between investigators, or between seasoned investigators and students, in the form of free afternoons. This format was very successful during the previous seven symposia.